Faced with demands for more Housing Choice Act rezoning options, the Select Board promoted the issue to a full warrant article at the Special Town Meeting on December 2 and promised to add a fifth option to the array.

Previously, officials had proposed a paper ballot on which residents ranked their choices among the options for complying with the HCA that could be completed and submitted any time during the meeting. Now, the ballots will be collected at a specific time and tallied, probably followed by one or more standing votes in a ranked-choice format that will proceed until one of the options wins a simple majority. That option will be put before residents at the Annual Town Meeting in March.

The four current options (C, D1, D2, and D3) as well as a summary of the voting procedure can be found in this slide deck from a November 13 multiboard meeting.

Staging the vote as a warrant article will allow “full debate on the floor of Town Meeting,” Town Administrator Tim Higgins said. However, amendments to the motion will not be permitted. “This is not the amendment place — you have a set [of choices], you vote, you move forward,” Select Board member Jennifer Glass said.

Fellow board member Kim Bodner invited the recently formed Lincoln Residents for Housing Alternatives (LRHA) to “show some leadership” and pick one or two options from the many they’ve suggested and formally submit to the Housing Choice Act Working Group (HCAWG), which will meet on November 21 to finalize the list for the December 2 vote. Residents are welcome to send specific suggestions to Glass at jglassselect@lincolntown.org or Director of Planning and Land Use Paula Vaughn-MacKenzie at vaughnp@lincolntown.org before noon on Monday, Nov. 20.

The five options will be spelled out in detail when a draft motion is written shortly before the Special Town Meeting. The new option will be checked for compliance with state HCA requirements before the vote.

Many comments and opinions

The three groups at the November 13 meeting (the Planning Board was also involved) spent more than three hours debating among themselves and listened to public comments from dozens of residents in person and on Zoom.

The LRHA has complained that the HCAWG has not adequately considered rezoning possibilities that would spread permitted-by-right multifamily housing more evenly among around town rather than concentrating them around Lincoln Station. As of November 14, the group’s website proposes five additional “E” options (down from 18 last week). But some residents and officials expressed discomfort at the group’s late-breaking opposition to the choices presented by the HCAWG and consultant Utile.

“What you have here is a group of people [on HCAWG] with a range of views who spent two years developing options and had multiple opportunities for town input. Now here we are at the last stage and we’re essentially saying to people who have not participated in the process until the very end that they can hijack it,” Planning Board member Gary Taylor said. “I encourage you to think about this” in the context of whether it might make people reluctant to do the time-consuming work of serving on groups like HCAWG in the future.

“The people who spoke up most recently should not outweigh the people who spoke up earlier or outweigh the effort the working group has done… but I think ‘hijack’ is a strong word,” Select Board member Jim Hutchinson said.

Trish O’Hagen said she felt “a little shaken as a resident” by the recent appearance and opposition of the LRHA. “I don’t know their guiding principles, but I have faith in this [HCAWG] group — I know who you are and have had the opportunity to vote. I want the same level of openness from the alternate group.”

“I have a lot of respect for [HCAWG] to do the research, survey public opinion and understand what’s required,” said Lis Herbert. “They’re capable of proposing what they think is best. If [other] people didn’t pay attention in the first place, does that mean they get to sidetrack the whole thing?”

The LRHA is also advocating an option that does not involve rezoning the Lincoln mall to allow multifamily housing above the commercial spaces — a provision included in all four current options. However, if a fifth option that excludes the mall wins out next month, the HCAWG plans to propose a separate rezoning amendment in March that would allow mixed-use redevelopment at the mall.

Another point of debate was whether or not to include a “none of the above” option in December. “We have to know now if there are a lot of people that don’t like any of these options,” Planning Board member Lynn DeLisi said, adding it would be a “big mistake” not to offer that choice.

Stalling tactics?

As in other recent meetings, some residents urged the town to delay the decision-making process, but others objected to letting it continue.

“Come on — does anybody wish we were still discussing the school?” Herbert said. “I think there’s a lot of hair-splitting in the numbers… I think they’re coming up with reasons to avoid what is really an important mandate from the state to just fix this [housing crisis problem. Whether people are comfortable with it or not, it’s the right thing to do.”

Putting more of the multifamily districts in North Lincoln will effectively result in far fewer units ever actually getting built in town because of ownership conditions in the two northern segments — an existing large office building in one, and a condo association in the other that would have to unanimously approve any new construction. 

“I’m curious if [the LRHA] will play ball and provide something that’s actually in the spirit of providing homes for people… I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Staci Montori.

“I’m deeply saddened and disappointed by the divisiveness coming out of this, and insulted by hearing words like ‘hijack’ and ‘not paying attention’,” Richard Ohlsten responded. “We’re feeling railroaded and feeling our voices are not being heard. The idea that we’re a bunch of malcontents and are somehow anti-housing is not true.”

“In fact, we have pushed inclusivity,” said Sara Mattes, pointing to the many affordable housing options already created in town that have freed Lincoln from the threat of a 40B development for the time being. Affordable housing throughout town and multifamily housing at the mall in particular are important, but so is a minimum amount of retail space. If the HCA mall district is approved, “all of these are going to be out the window… and the next owner [of the mall] can come in and do as they will and basically squeeze most retail out.”

Before the Select Board (which has the final say about the Town Meeting warrant) unanimously voted to add the rezoning article, the other two boards took informal votes. The Planning Board agreed with the idea by a 3-1 vote with Taylor voting nay. HCAWG was also divided on the issue; six voted in favor, three voted against (Taylor, Rachel Drew, and Kathy Shepard), and three abstained.

More than 200 people turned out (virtually) to ask questions, urge a go-slow approach and ask for more options at a public forum on the most recent proposals for complying with the Housing Choice Act.

A new group called the Lincoln Residents for Housing Alternatives (LRHA) formed to propose other options that would comply with the state law but concentrate fewer housing units in the mall/train station area. Their website asks for a “full spectrum of options, not just a small subset chosen by a few” and presents 18 alternatives that they say will satisfy the state’s complex requirements.

The group has also asked the Housing Choice Act Working Group to decouple the mall property from all of the proposals. Several attendees at the online forum also asked to have a “none of the above” option on the nonbinding ballot at the December 2 Special Town meeting where a ranked-choice “sense of the town” vote aims to settle on a single option that will be formally voted on at the Annual Town Meeting in March.

Among the LRHA’s 55 members are residents who have posted numerous emails to LincolnTalk to ask questions and voiced objections. On November 7, HCAWG posted a document with detailed answers to dozens of questions it’s received from residents. 

Town sentiment among those who’ve participated in public meetings has seesawed over time. Residents favored a plan that would concentrate allowed multifamily housing in South Lincoln, which is reflected in Option C that the town recently submitted to the state for a compliance check. In recent weeks, LRHA members have urged HCAWG to locate more of the required 635 housing units in North Lincoln and demanded that it offer some of the group’s alternative options on December 2.

A summary of the four options to be considered on December 2 (click image to enlarge).

Resisting pressure

But HCAWG has thus far stood firm in mandating a choice among just four options — Option C and three more (D1, D2, and D3) that were formulated after the second wave of public input and presented on October 24. “As a working group, we’ve decided to stick with the range of proposals that we have right now,” Select Board member Jennifer Glass at the November 8 forum (slide deck here). On November 21, “we will have a discussion as to what the final details are.”

The HCA issue is a discussion item but is not on the actual warrant on December 2 “under current planning,” Glass said. The Special Town Meeting is intended to focus on votes around the community center and expansion of The Commons at Lincoln. “We thought originally we would make a decision [on an HCA option] based on the State of the Town meeting, but we heard from the community that it was important to think about some additional options.”

Another objection to the current proposals is that, although they require at least 10% of the multifamily units to be affordable, they do not meet the town’s higher mandated proportion. The state required towns seeking to require more than 10% do a feasibility study to see if a higher percentage was economically feasible for developers. The study showed that it was not, mainly due to the high interest rates and escalating construction costs — a situation not unique to Lincoln.

“There are lots of projects in Boston already permitted but not being built due to the economic climate. That’s a major problem with getting these multifamily projects off the ground,” said Paula Vaughn-MacKenzie, Director of Planning and Land Use.

Seeking a longer process

“Let’s slow it down, go at our pace, comply [with the HCA] but move very cautiously and do it in a deliberative and thoughtful manner that engages more people,” Sara Mattes said. “We’re fast-tracking for something that’s not due until December 2024,” when commuter rail towns like Lincoln must have new multifamily zoning in place.

“How we act will have a significant impact, both positive and negative, on the quality of life in Lincoln,” said Susan Hall Mygatt, who echoed others in asking for a “none of the above” option on December 2. “We’re trying to meet an aggressive timetable that’s well in advance of the timetable demanded by the state… we have the time to figure this out.”

“Going slow is not code for ‘not in my back yard’,” said Katherine McVety.

Others said that having rezoning the mall, having the Rural Land Foundation partner with a developer such as Civico to redevelop it, and then eventually leasing or selling it ceded too much control. “The mall does warrant redevelopment, but the way it’s been bundled with the HCA is not the way we should go about it,” said William Broughton.

Michele Barnes, chair of the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust/RLF Board of Trustees, argued that the RLF was aiming to continue fulfilling its preservation mission and has been propping up the mall for some time. “We’ve taken on debt and put our own endowment into the mall to keep the mall as vibrant as we can. Everything we’ve done at the mall and seek to do is for the ends of the town because our mission is to serve the town and to preserve Lincoln’s rural character,” she said. 

David Hobson asked what would happen if the town missed the December 2024 deadline — “it might be worth taking that penalty if we retain control,” he said. But Vaughn-Mackenzie explained that the town would go to the back of the line or lose eligibility for MassWorks grants, which will be vital for rebuilding the water mains between Bedford Road and Route 117 — a project estimated to cost $2.75 million per mile.

“My preference is to have at least most of the housing potentially buildable,” as opposed to including The North Lincoln parcels in the multifamily district, said Ken Hurd. The Lincoln North property already contains a large office building. As for Battle Road Farm, even if rezoning allowed more multifamily housing there, nothing would actually be built because every condo owner would have to agree, as the common property is also owned by them. “That’s almost like saying we don’t want to supply housing,” he said. “I don’t think we need more choices if we’re going to stay somewhat in the spirit of the law.”

“The state intends this as a very long-range plan — they understand that some options may be more interesting to developers than others,” Glass said.